This blaming of CrossFit and CF trainers is a joke. Anyone can go into any globo gym and workout the same day they join and workout completely unsupervised. Happens every-friggin-day. And those same people who really don't know jack about working out are free to go about the gym and do all kinds exercises with bad form.

I have yet to see people bash the globo's for letting people doing exercises with horrible form get injured in their gyms.

Sometimes people have to be adults, take responsibility for their own voluntary actions & quit blaming everyone else. Unless of course these people were forced to do crossfit workouts at gun point.

The higher you get up the food chain in a particular field, the more people that will hate you for doing what you do. Ignore them. The numbers you put together should tell you that there are more than enough people that will find you, and NOT listen to the vocal minority.

Exactly.

As CrossFit continues to grow, so will the naysayers and critics.

Mike Hopper's comment is a great example. He made the remark that the Level I cert is a joke, yet has never taken the cert before. Go figure!

Personally I found the Level 1 a necessary pre-requistite to starting an affiliate and just one of the many tools needed to run a successful gym.

I'm not just saying this for argument's sake but I honestly hear quite a bit, be it from roommates returning from the school gym or friends I'm there with or overhearing other people. People love to talk **** for whatever reason, it happens with crossfitters making fun of meatheads and meatheads making fun of crossfitters.

Actually now that I think about it my gym took the extreme route and banned all olympic lifting and all "ballistic/explosive" movements because they don't want people hurting themselves. Obviously this is idiotic, I'm not defending it.

Last edited by Collin Thompson : 02-06-2012 at 09:46 PM.
Reason: I thought about it

This blaming of CrossFit and CF trainers is a joke. Anyone can go into any globo gym and workout the same day they join and workout completely unsupervised. Happens every-friggin-day. And those same people who really don't know jack about working out are free to go about the gym and do all kinds exercises with bad form.

I have yet to see people bash the globo's for letting people doing exercises with horrible form get injured in their gyms.

Sometimes people have to be adults, take responsibility for their own voluntary actions & quit blaming everyone else. Unless of course these people were forced to do crossfit workouts at gun point.

Apples and oranges, sir.

Globo gyms (personal trainers aside, as that's a different matter) don't provide coaching, nor do they provide programming, nor do they advertise that they can/will sufficiently coach complex barbell and gymnastic movements to anyone who walks in their doors.

Globo gyms provide equipment, some diagrams on the wall illustrating how to do tricep kickbacks, and showers. That's it. They don't claim that they are forging elite anything; they provide you with a clean place to do your thing, tell you not to drop weights or grunt too much, and let you have at it.

On the other hand, Crossfit gyms provide equipment, coaching, programming, nutritional advice, camaraderie, and explicit lessons on form/safety/etc. It's part of the Crossfit modus operandi, and Crossfit doesn't claim to be anything less. Everyone working out at a Crossfit box is supervised. Therefore, it is partially the responsibility of the Crossfit coaches at the box to look out for the safety of their clients. Like Eric said, I walk into my doctor's office expecting that he is an experienced and licensed professional who can provide me with safe medical care--I put the responsibility in his hands. Something like Crossfit or a bootcamp fitness club is much the same: I sign up with and pay my coach with the expectation that he will coach me properly, program for me intelligently, and do everything in his power to improve my health and athleticism and prevent injury. I put much of the responsibility in the coach's hands.

So when we see more than a handful of people walking out of the doors of their Crossfit boxes with rhabdo and slap tears every few weeks, there is reason for alarm and criticism (though blatant and thoughtless mudslinging gets nothing done, constructive criticism or media attention may)--there are evidently some irresponsible, under-educated, or under-qualified coaches out there, and not much is being (publicly) done by the higher-ups to fix it.
So, let the blaming continue. Perhaps some good may come from it.

And CrossFit doesn't do much to dispell these allegations. Like many other fitness certifications, the CrossFit Level 1 training is a joke. But that's all that CrossFit requires for a coach to open a gym. A weekend course.

tut tut Mike - really? you think so? Been around a few now and gotta say the attention to detail from the coaches both in terms of practical but also the theory is second to none.

Like a few others have said at least Cf makes you take a test. Some other organisations just require you to show a few snatches and you good to go. No prior knowledge needed and no need to take a test that includes detail on A&P, energy systems, form and detail on CF methodology.

Sure a practical test could be introduced to make sure coaching was top class too but i'm sure we may see that down the road.

The infamous heirarchy of training for mass that's in the FAQ:
1. Bodybuilding on steroids
2. CrossFitting on steroids
3. CrossFitting without steroids
4. Bodybuilding without steroids

And the even more infamous claim that "We can take you from a 200 pound max deadlift to a 500-750 pound max deadlift in two years while only pulling max singles four or five times a year."

And of course, two of the most famous bosts:

"We do your stuff almost as well as you, you can't do our stuff at all and we do stuff neither of us do way better than you can."

"The strength and value of CrossFit lies entirely within our dominance of other athletes. This is a truth divined through competition, not debate.”

Basically, the claims above suggest that crossfiting is better for triathletes than triathlon training, better for bodybuilders than bodybuilding training, better for powerlifters than powerlifting training, and just overall the greatest thing ever.

It's why, although I like crossfitting, I hesitate about calling myself a crossfitter.

I tend to ignore alot of those, and chalk them up to a skilled salesman making a very convincing pitch with little (or in some of those statements) ALOT of hyperbole, or at least a pitch that is bound to stir up controversy and thereby garner attention. The old maxim, all publicity is good publicity. Did/Does Glassman believe those statements 100%, or was he saying it to garner attention, only he truly knows, but in the end CF has grown and is growing regardless. IMO only the most stubburn of critics and die hard kool aid drinkers really put much credence in those early statments.